Lifting the lid
Award-winning Australian artist Vincent Fantauzzo takes us under the bonnet of a special creation that shares a uniquely Australian story.
Vincent Fantauzzo:
“With this painting, I want to connect with people who are passionate about art and cars.”If Australia has a national anthem of colours, you will find them at Uluru. Anyone who has seen the sun’s rays bounce off this vast natural rock at dawn or dusk knows it’s a silent firework show you won’t find anywhere else.
In fact, if Andy Warhol had spent time in central Australia and witnessed a single sunset at Uluru then he might never have said, “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes.” Just ask Australian artist Vincent Fantauzzo. He knows the visual and emotional impact of an Uluru sunset. The Melbourne-based painter, internationally famed for his portraits of famous identities including an array of Hollywood stars, was changed by Uluru’s ability to etch itself into human memory, and he’s carried it with him ever since.
“I was in the Northern Territory to do a talk and I had the chance to visit Uluru,” he says, recalling his first encounter with Australia’s greatest natural landmark. “I still remember the locals telling me that day it was unusually cloudy, which would create a perfect sunset. It truly was.”
So when Porsche Cars Australia asked Vincent to record a special local image to celebrate the brand’s 75th year down under, it was the perfect muse. And he applied it to the perfect canvas: the bonnet from a Porsche 911 Carrera.
“With this painting, I want to connect with people who are passionate about art and cars.”
For Vincent, it’s a personal connection that goes beyond his own story with Porsche and his automotive passion.
“Every time I do a portrait I can feel the person’s energy. The hair on my skin stands up. I get really hot or become cold. It’s a physical reaction for me and it comes out in the image.”
Drawing on that unforgettable sunset, Vincent conveys this deep, emotional experience in Sundown – Red Centre. It reproduces Uluru’s deep-colour impact and recreates the site’s magnetic force which attracts people from all over the world.
“When European artists first travelled to Australia, the landscape paintings they sent back home made some people think these artists had lost their minds. Australia’s natural colours were regarded as surreal back then because they were unlike anything they had seen.”
You can see this in Vincent’s composition, which is a perfect replica of what he witnessed that memorable day.
“The colours are exactly as I saw them. Uluru is such a powerful place. It’s so remote and special it must be the closest experience we have to landing on the moon. My hope is that the painting conveys the feelings it gave me that day, and also evokes the smell of the air and the sweltering heat for anyone who’s had the great fortune to visit Uluru.”
It certainly does. Absorb its deep hypnotic colours for more than a few seconds and the composition takes on a 3D-like quality, as if you’re looking through a doorway. With one step you could be standing on Uluru’s sacred red and orange ground.
“When I paint someone’s portrait I have them focus on what has meaning to them because it creates the energy in the painting. That energy conveys emotion, which in turn sparks feelings in the viewer.” He has certainly conveyed the life of Australia’s sacred centre.
Vincent created this special painting with Porsche Cars Australia to raise funds for Make-A-Wish Australia, the leading not-for-profit charity that grants life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.
Porsche Cars Australia displayed Vincent’s artwork at the Porsche Pavilion during this year’s Formula 1® Australian Grand Prix, where invited guests marvelled at its visual and emotional impact. Via an online auction, his one-off creation sold for 33,000 Australian dollars, with all proceeds donated to Make-A-Wish Australia.
“This has been an opportunity to do something special,” Vincent says.
